This year has had many ups and downs, and as of late it feels as if the whole world is a down. Real life has really smacked me down, and I've felt so isolated from all of the things and people I love. And yet... looking back brings me so much joy and fulfillment. I've accomplished so much that I don't give myself credit for. More than I'll dare type up here, but let's go through the highlight reel, shall we?
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perverse_idyll / 
Fiction (noun)
1.) literature in the form of prose, especially novels, that describes imaginary events and people.
2.) something that is invented or untrue.
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Disclaimer: no real people were harmed in the creation of this fanwork (or any others.)
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Content Rating E: Explicit: only suitable for adults.
This post will discuss mature themes that requires rational thinking and an open-mind. Tread carefully.
Content Warnings: discussions of violence, death, and sex. Mentions of other "questionable" content. Acknowledgment that content you do not like probably exists.
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YKINMKATOK (or KINKTOMATO) (aka Your Kink Is Not My Kink (And That's OK): Kinks that you do not like exist. Their mere existence is not hurting you. Please feel free to click away from any subject matter that does not appeal to you.
SALS (aka Ship and Let Ship): ships that you do not like or outright hate exist. They are not hurting you by existing, no matter how "immoral" you believe them to be.
DL;DR (aka Don't Like, Don't Read): seriously, folks, there's a back button. Feel free to click it any time.
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Dead Dove; Do Not Read: I'm warning you, turn back now. This post is anti-censorship. If you cannot handle reading such content, now is the time to turn back. If you continue reading, do so at your own risk.
There is something very vulnerable about being creative. Even if your story or art is for your eyes only, it is still a piece of your soul you’ve ripped free and given shape to.
It can be a moment of pride, seeing it exist outside of yourself, but scary, too.
Scarier when you allow others access to it.
Scarier still, when its shape is not one many will see beauty in. When it is too dark, too rough for others to love.
You can’t control how others will receive your creation. And you can’t always anticipate it. Might not know to brace yourself when it ripped to shreds. Might not know how to feel when it is ignored; untouched and unwanted.
There is thrill and validation in praise. It is what we hope for. Hope to see these labors of love embraced and accepted. It’s a part of yourself being loved, after all.
Let Snape be ugly.
Okay, I said it, let’s go.
There are reasons why people want to prettify their characters, and there’s nothing wrong with it. (To be fair, I’m not the type to think much is “wrong” in fiction.) If you think JKR did bad, wrong things in her work and want to reclaim it, go for it! If you love a character and want to see them at their best, go for it! If you just wanna think about incredibly sexy people getting it on, have at it my friend!
But for me…I just want Snape to be ugly. I really, really want it.
Anytime a writer lovingly refers to him with grotesque language, my heart sings. It SINGS.
“Snape’s gargoyle face” – thank you for that one, @perverse-idyll, there’s not nearly enough of that in my life.
This isn’t just Severus Snape, of course, though I’ll carry on ad nauseam about him, as he is the love of my life. (Shh, no one tell my actual real life life partner.) Let all of your characters have aspects of their appearance that don’t fit into what society deems to be attractive.
And don’t get me wrong. There is something very beautiful about turning every flaw into poetry. My partner tells me my curls reflect my inner chaos and yes, I swoon every time. (That’s not a good comparison, though, because my curls are actually flawless.) (Just kidding, anyone with curly hair knows better.)
Let your characters be chubby. Let them have scars and acne. In fact, let them have acne scars! Let Pansy keep her nose, stop taming Hermione’s hair, talk at length about Harry’s knobby knees. Let them have cellulite, bald spots, crooked teeth.
You know, if you want to. I, at least, want to read about it.
Your villains don’t all have to be ugly, but know this: your heroes canbe.
People are still worthy of love and attention whether or not you like the way they look. Their every flaw doesn’t have to be softened or glossed over.
You do not have to name something beautiful for it to be worthy.
You do not have to have minimal flaws to be worthy.
Let Snape have his greasy hair. My mom’s hair gets pretty greasy, especially if she’s been washing dishes all day. She’s not unclean and she’s certainly not evil. Her scalp just produces lots of oil for whatever reason.
Let Snape have his large, crooked nose. He was born with it, it’s fine. You don’t have to like the look of it and you don’t have to compose odes in its honor.
Let Snape have his yellowed fingers. The man works hard, okay! It’s not weird that his fingers are yellow. You don’t have to erase that from him for him to be okay. He’s fine. It’s just a color. It’s just skin.
That’s life. Stuff happens. It impacts us, physically or otherwise.
You don’t have to fit society’s standards of beauty, and you don’t have to feel beautiful. You are still worthy of love and respect. However you see yourself. However other people see you. You still deserve love. You still deserve respect.
And Severus Snape does not have to be nice or pretty for me to devote my life to him.
Don’t get me wrong. I love beautiful prose and I enjoy a stellar plot. But I’ll trade it all for a truly wrenching character study.
What can I say? I love people. I’m fascinated by people. It’s people that matter to me, real or fiction.
Now, there’s much to be said for characters who are strong and noble and blah blah blah, but I’m much much more interested in their humanity than their virtues.
Seeing them at their best is great, but so is seeing them at their worst.
Show me the ugly side of who they are. I NEED IT.
Severus Snape, for example (light of my life) – There are plenty of “good” things to say about him. He’s intelligent, skilled, driven, dedicated, and passionate. Brave and strong. And I love those “good” parts of him, but I love his “bad” side, too. I love him prickly and petty and mean. I love him selfish and cruel.
He’s not a perfect person. But who is?
Real people are a mess, which I say with utmost fondness. I don’t love people for their good parts and good parts alone. I am not blind to their imperfections.
Real people are only human. Real people are worthy of love and respect and decency.
Fictional characters, silly as it might sound, deserve to be human, too. Their humanity is what often draws me to them in the first place, and seeing that humanity laid bare in a fanfic just does things to me.
Seeing the characters in their best form is find and dandy, and I won’t deny enjoying those portrayals or those stories.
But what touches me the most is seeing them at their worst. Seeing even our great heroes as mortal as the rest of us. I want to see them judgmental and temperamental and petty and mean. I want them cowardly and weak. If that’s who they are on the whole, or because they’re having a bad day and are lashing out or breaking down. Because even kind, patient people have moments of unkindness and impatience. No one is perfect.
We are all impacted by the world around us. By other people. By what has happened to us. By what weighs on us. It shapes us. And even when we fight against it, it shapes us in other ways.
I want Harry Potter’s bravery and his loyalty, but I also want his hot-headedness and impulsivity. I want this great hero screwing up because whatever great deeds he’s accomplished, he’s still a person. And he’s not immune to mistakes any more than the rest of us are.
I want Neville forgetful and insecure. Hermione overbearing and strict.
I want good people doing bad things.
I want their flaws on display. I want to revel in them.
I want more than the one trait to merely nod at to say “see? They’re not perfect.” I want to really see it. I want to feel it. I want to see those flaws impacting them and the people around them.
I want them down in the dirt. I want them flayed alive and bare to all, or at least bare to me. I want their humanity on ruthless display.
And then…this was not part of my original concept, but I’ll thank @phantomato for this one: seeing our villains as more than pure evil. More than weapons with which to destroy our beloved heroes. It’s both unsettling and fascinating to see these awful people be more than just their awful actions and awful traits. That there is goodness in them as much as there is anyone else.
Not feigning ignorance of those evil deeds and not forgiving them, really, but seeing them as more. Harry Potter is more than the savior, and Lord Voldemort is more than the bad guy.
I want their best and their worst. I want to see it all, so I can love them, all of them. I want to see all of them be loved by others; other readers and other characters.
There is comfort to be found there. In knowing that we don’t have to be perfect to be worthy of affection. There is comfort in understanding other people, and being ourselves understood.
And when an author makes these characters real…all I want to do is roll around in the dirt and bask in the filth and CELEBRATE all that these characters are.
“If there’s magic, why not [insert literally anything here]?”
Because it’s boring!
Also…not very realistic.
(…she said about MAGIC. Yes, yes, I know, but c'mon, just open your mind a little.)
( Read more... ) As a writer who is friends with other writers (and many other types of creators in general), I can tell you that I’ve yet to encounter a creator who is judging your kindness. No one scoffs or rolls their eyes. They are, as a whole, touched by every bit of love they receive.
As a writer…I love comments! They make my world go round. I have so much love for this fandom and I put so much heart into my stories that it is very reassuring to know that other people enjoy them. And getting to hear people’s takeaways? What they thought, how they felt? There’s something so beautiful about that! (Also, I won’t lie, the comments where I’m getting screamed at for wrecking hearts are -chef’s kiss-.)
Especially as fan creators, we’ll never be paid in any sort of currency for what we do. And no one is obligated to “pay” us in comments, but it sure helps keep the lights on (in a creative and wellbeing sense, rather than a literal sense.)
As a reader…I love comments! As in, reading them! It’s so fun to finish up a story you fell in love with and then check the comment section for what other people had to say. Other people who, more than likely, also enjoyed this story! Even better if the creator RESPONDS so you might just see more of what the creator has to say about their work!
It makes me excited all over again, seeing how the work has impacted other people. And knowing that it isn’t just me. We’re not alone in loving fanfiction anymore than we’re alone in loving the fandom itself.
As a commenter…I love comments! As in writing them! I LOVE commenting.
The funny story is this…That once upon a time I was too scared to comment. I didn’t feel that anyone would value anything I had to say. I felt like I would be bothering the creator with my flailing incoherency. That I had too much to say, too much enthusiasm, blah blah blah. The idea of commenting was embarrassing. Of putting your love out there for someone you don’t know, and not knowing how it will be received.
Then I fell so madly in love with a story I couldn’t not comment. I dipped my toes into the water at first and, when my more restrained comments were well-received I lost my goshdang mind. Began writing ESSAYS about my love for that work.
It’s always a little scary for me. But what I realized is that it’s the same sort of fear I have when writing. Wishing I said things better. That I had more to say, or less. Worried about how it will be seen. Etc, etc.
Creating means putting yourself out there. You put so much heart and soul into this work and then you share it and it’s such a vulnerable experience. And you hope and you hope and you hope that it’s okay.
Commenting is similar, in a way. Exposing in a way. But it’s a GOOD thing. The act of sharing love is pure and joyous and infectious! Go scream at that creator that “OH MY GOD THIS IS SO GOOD”, nice and simple and will put a smile on their face. Or write them a dissertation about how their work has wrecked your existence in the best of ways. They’ll eat it up, I promise!
Rest assured, sharing your love is spreading goodness in a world that very much needs it.
But if you’re looking at what’s in it for you…Well. It’s just plain FUN. Chatting about things you like is FUN. Even a simple “OH MY GOD I LOVED IT” is fun to get off your chest!
Not to mention I find that, especially in my more long-winded comments, the more I talk about what I love, the more I love it. Sitting there and thinking it out and really mulling over the more meaningful parts…ahh!! I thought I was excited before, but I’m really excited now!!!!
Commenting gives you the opportunity to take an extra moment with the creation that touched you. Extra time to think about it. Extra time to enjoy it. And extra time to give back to it.
You don’t have to comment, of course not. I hope no one ever feels obligated to do so. But it is an opportunity you have to interact more with the work and also bring joy to someone else while doing it. So if you ever feel like you want to, I hope you feel encouraged to do so!
(Wow I really meant for this to be a short “commenting is fun!” piece but, much like my comments, it quickly got out of control. Oops!)
Sometimes with fanfic I’ve thought about tagging how I see the characters identifying, but I figure if I don’t “show” it, I shouldn’t.
But I’ve been thinking about how reading fanfic taught me a lot about myself and it was all because of AO3 tags. I had no idea what demisexual even meant until I saw it tagged on a Supernatural fanfic.
And the fanfic itself didn’t necessarily teach me. The point of the story wasn’t to teach me anything, it was to tell the story of Cas and Dean (yes I’m a Destiel shipper.) But I was intrigued by the term and did my research.
I turned to Google. Then to Facebook groups. And all the while I kept following this fanfic series (The Writing on the Wall by DasMervin I highly recommend.) I had never really considered before that someone could be anything related to asexual and still be okay with sex. And the more I read of this fanfic and other people’s experiences, I decided that demisexual fit me best.
I no longer identify that way, but it was part of my journey.
In my teen years, I identified as bisexual, then pansexual, due to feeling pretty equally attracted to everyone. “That person is pretty, and so is that person, and so is that person!” Young Danni had no idea what aesthetic attraction was, okay? Think person is good looking = must be sexual attraction!
Wrong.
Think people are good looking? Check. Good with sex? Check. Sex-focused society? Check. But that does not sexual attraction make. I have never in my life experienced actual sexual attraction to anyone. Which I had never fully realized until I started exploring more about the asexual community. I learned about the Split-Attraction Model. I learned about being sex repulsed versus sex neutral versus sex favorable. I learned about demi and gray-ace.
I clung to the demisexual label longer than I think I should have. I think I knew better for a while. But I couldn’t fully reconcile wanting to have sex with a partner if I wasn’t at least demi. And even once I got there, I didn’t want to admit to not being actually sexually attracted to my partner. Eventually I moseyed over to the “asexual is the umbrella term so I’m just going to use that” camp before fully embracing the “nope, I’m definitely sex-favorable asexual.”
It was a long journey there. I’m 29 years old and only fully accepted and admitted it about a year ago. It fits me perfectly and it’s so freeing to me to have words to explain what I experience. My self-discovery journey has been a joyous one. Because I knew, even as a teenager, that something wasn’t quite right with how I felt, and that’s because the words I was using didn’t fit me. Having words for it helped me figure out where I am and how I feel. It helped me accept myself as I am and know that there is not (and never was) anything wrong with me at all.
Labels aren’t for everyone. They aren’t good, joyous, or helpful for everyone. And that’s fine. But for me it has been huge.
I’ve since read more fanfics with asexuality. None fitting my experience exactly. I’ve seen sex-repulsed or sex-neutral asexuality portrayed. I’ve probably read more demisexuality than anything.
I even read a Harry Potter fanfic where it wasn’t tagged, but in the story Harry identified himself as being bisexual and homo-romantic (Little Monkeys by Lilian, a Snarry fanfic) and it wasn’t me, but seeing the Split-Attraction Model in action had me grinning for quite some time after!
I still don’t know how to feel about tagging characters’ sexualities in fanfic (for my works, personally, if I don’t “showcase” it.) But I have to wonder…would it help someone like me? I think about how cool it would be for me even now to read a story where I knew one of the characters was just like me: sex favorable ace. If it’s never talked about, and no one would know without the tag because the character had a partner and enjoyed sex. Just thinking about it makes me happy!
And I think about other things that might not be as visible: bisexual or pansexual people in hetero-passing relationships. Or, much like what sent me on my journey, demisexual characters in relationships! To either see characters like you, living in ways that aren’t “obvious”, even if that part of your identity matters to you. Or to help people who might not realize there is a better label out there for them. Or even people who just don’t know about these terms, whether they would identify with them or not, still learning about them.
Maybe I’m overthinking it. But it does make me really happy when I see the characters tagged as asexual or bisexual or a plethora of other identities. So maybe I’ll do it myself one day. And maybe some people will roll their eyes. But maybe some people will give it a second look and wonder.
timeasmymeasure
